


Out of the Dark

by ImaKaraTabiHe



Series: Speedster Family [6]
Category: Justice League - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Claustrophobia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Pain, Trapped, Wally Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-30 07:08:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6413944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImaKaraTabiHe/pseuds/ImaKaraTabiHe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wally's trapped beneath tons of rubble and he doesn't want to know how badly hurt he is.<br/>His saviors come as a surprise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wally's Black Out Dream

Wally is not afraid to admit he's trembling. It's not just from the cold. It's damn cold. But he's so afraid. It's not claustrophobia. He's not afraid to say that he feels like the walls are closing in on him and maybe they are. He's buried under tons of rubble. _Alive._

_Buried alive._ He laughs darkly to himself. This was not the way his day was supposed to turn out. Not. One. Bit. This is the last place he wanted to be. The last thing he wanted to be caught up in.

Wally's supposed to be at Wayne Manor with Dick, playing games, and hanging out. He's supposed to be  scarfing down those delicious cookies that Alfred makes, hiding from the big bad Bat. Not here.

If there's one thing he knows for sure, it's that he wasn't supposed to be taken by Gotham's resident  homicidal clown. No siree. The Joker is Batman's business. Why he took Flash's partner is beyond him.

A wounded sound slips from his lips as he shudders, movement flowing through his body and aggravating his injuries. Pain  lances from them and he can't stop himself from sobbing. He doesn't dare try and think about the damage. He's grateful for the dark, hiding his wounds from sight, but he really hates this.

How could he have known that the stop he made for a snack would include poisoned food? Wally swears he was careful, but no. Somehow he fucked up. Wally fucked up and now he's been blown up and buried under tons of rubble that could come crashing down and  smash the life out of him at any moment. Oh, he  _really_ hates this.

There's an itch on his neck that's getting really annoying, so he reflexively tries to reach up and rectify that annoyance. His eyes widen as he hears a dull crack and pain leaps up his arm. Well, now he nows his hand is broken. How many bones, he's not sure. He's just sure that his hand is probably not the only place with broken bones.

Wally doesn't know if anyone's coming for him. He's waiting. And waiting. And it feels like years in the dark. Did Uncle Barry know? Did Batman find Joker? Was Dick worried?

His lungs heave with a terrible wheezing sound and there's a dull ache in his torso that gets worse with each breath. Despite the increasing pain and difficulty breathing, he can't hold back the terrible sob. Wally cries there, pinned under rubble, alone in the dark.

'Is he going to die?' - is one thought that flashes through his mind and it makes him panic. Oh God. Maybe he is. Maybe no one's coming. Maybe this is it. Broken or not, he throws his hand over his stomach and tries to hold himself together because he feels like he's falling apart.

He must be having a panic attack because all of a sudden he can't breath and the pain is threatening to pull him to pieces and he just can't take it.

It's almost a relief when his sense of consciousness fades and he falls into an empty abyss.

“ _Baby Flash!?”_

“ _Shit, Kid!”_

“ _Sam, make a window to the Watchtower's Medbay!”_

“ _Hurry!”_

“ _Just hold on, Kid.. Just hold on….”_

There's a loud commotion and lots of raised voices cursing and yelling threats. And then there's a thud that makes Wally furrow his brow and he cracks an eye open.

Weirdest dream ever. But what can you expect from being knocked out?

It would be hilarious if this were real. He can't stop a small snicker at the way Green Arrow's jaw has dropped open. Superman looks positively frazzled and Hawkgirl's wings look ruffled. Trickster is yelling at them to move their asses and help or he'll snot them. Piper, Heatwave, and Mirror Master look similarly pissed off at other heroes that Wally doesn't take the time to recognize.

He can't stop from frowning as he notices food trays on the tables. Huh. Cafeteria. Oddly nice. It's too bad he doesn't think he could stomach anything right now. But it's a dream. Dream food wouldn't fill him up anyways.

Suddenly Hal fills his vision and is reaching out and lifting Wally. Taking him from whoever was holding him. He blinks, confused. Wally hadn't realized anyone had been holding him. But he should've. He wasn't just floating in the air by himself.

The transfer jostles his injuries and his throat burns from being dry as he screams in pain. Black spots fill his vision and he gives in because he really hates the pain. As he blacks out once more, he can't help but think – 'Can you black out in a dream?'

The next time he wakes up, the pain is a dull throb and he feels unusually heavy, restrained. “The Hell...” Wally croaks out, voice still dry and scratchy.

There's several thumps and he finds himself surrounded by Rogues and heroes. “Are you okay?”

“Do I need to get the doctor?”

“Wally, speak to us.”

Wally frowns as he examines the faces in front of him. Captain Cold holds up a cup of ice water with a straw and Wally sucks a few gulps gratefully. “This has got to be the weirdest dream ever.”

Flash, Hal, and Robin exchange a mix of amused and concerned glances with the Rogues. Flash turns to Wally. “Not a dream, Kid. We're all here.”

Wally sighs, noting bandages on his face and well.. almost all of his body.

“I thought I was gonna die in the dark… all alone…”

Any amusement disappears from their faces and they all look extremely sad and heartbroken. Robin looks guilty, even behind his mask. Trickster and Piper look like their afraid to touch him, as if they might break him.

A cold, gentle hand on his cheek grabs his attention and his eyes connect with Cold's. “Never, Kid. Never, ever.” Everyone looks so sure of Cold's words.

Warm tears slip down his cheeks, soaking up in bandages some and some falling down his neck. “Oh God,” he sobs out. “It was so dark and so small...” His ribs creak unhappily as he cries. “I was so- so scared,” he bawls.

Flash reaches over and runs his fingers through Wally's hair lightly. “Ssshh… We got you… You're okay now. It's okay..” Flash repeats, voice low and soothing.

Once Wally is finished crying, Cold tells him how they'd been in town “on business” when they heard “shit go down” and something about the Joker grabbing Flash's kid. They had been able to trick Joker into revealing the location and his plan, but they hadn't been there in time to stop the bomb. It had taken them an hour to move enough rubble to get to Wally. Wally had been so injured that they'd bypassed hospitals and went straight to the Watchtower, unfortunately ending up in the cafeteria. From there other heroes had taken over and gotten him into the Medbay and fixed him up.

Flash and Robin had arrived during one of the three surgeries he'd had to have from his wounds. It turns out he was way worse than he thought he was at the time, but he finds that he's glad that he hadn't known at the time. Wally had been freaked out enough.

The League had been stunned and freaked out themselves but Hal had stood up for the Rogues and told them that they'd rescued Kid and it was well within their right to be there for him when he woke up. Batman hadn't been too happy, but the Rogues had kindly told him to stuff in in less kind words. That's why they'd been able to be there. That and the fact that once Flash had arrived he'd solidified it.

The Rogues stayed there for a few more hours until doctors came to put him to sleep so that he could rest and heal. They had to leave after that because they were making the heroes (not Flash and Robin) nervous. Before he went back to sleep, they promised him that nothing like that would ever happen to him again. It was a Rogues promise and Rogues didn't promise easily, so it helped Wally relax and slip into a peaceful sleep. The fact that Robin was curled up on a chair by his bedside didn't hurt either.

Flash slipped out when he was just falling asleep to talk to the Rogues, but promised he'd be right there if he woke. Hal didn't move one bit from another chair in the room. He just sat there and glowed a soft green glow in the dimmed room. It was soothing and comforting. It was the last thing he saw as he drifted off to sleep, knowing that if he woke up from nightmares, his friends and family would be there to save him, no matter what.


	2. Criminals and Heroes Alike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Rogues perspective on bringing Kid Flash to the Watchtower as well as Hal's perspective on the Rogues' actions. Both sides make promises they intend to keep.

The last thing Captain Cold expected when he took a trip to Gotham with his Rogues for a business trip was to overhear news saying that Joker had caught Flash's “brat”. News of the dirty side of Gotham was always overflowing in the kinds of bars the Rogues frequented. He just never expected to hear of their own Baby Flash being taken.

It set the Rogues on edge to overhear that kind of talk. He was their Baby after all. Still, they couldn't rightly go and pull him out of danger. It would create the wrong kind of talk for both sides. Sure, they wanted to go pull their baby out of some crazy Gothamite's grasp. By Hell they wanted to. It wasn't their place though. Kid had to take care of himself or wait until his hero friends saved him. Flash was the overprotective type, so he'd get the kid out of danger, wouldn't he?

“Can't believe Joker managed to get his paws on the little Flash.”

That one sentence broke their patience. No way in fuck were they about to abandon their baby to that maniac. Oh that really burned them. No, Cold would let Mick burn something, or someone. He'd have no pity for the fucker who took their kid.

It was easy to.. persuade the others for information regarding Joker's plan. No one knew the whole story, but Cold was a master planner and even with the shards of information, he could make a picture of the scraps. Needless to say, it wasn't a picture he was liking, fit with bombs and death. The fucker was going to blow him up.

Getting the place where Joker was hiding the kid was more difficult. The plan was solid, but the location was vague at best. That was when it paid to have a mirror manipulator on the team. Sam really did his best work when he was pissed and pissed he was. It hadn't taken him long to start the search through all of the reflective surfaces in Gotham. But the very act had been tedious and they arrived to see the building in rubble, smoke rising from the debris. They'd been too late.

The Rogues had promptly had a heart-attack. The one thing running through their minds was 'is he still alive'. God, they were too afraid to think of their baby has dead. It was that fear that had Cold snapping back to his authoritative personality and ordering the Rogues to dig through the debris. It seemed to take even longer than finding the place to pull the rubble back and out of the way, but they finally did. The sight was something that would give them nightmares for months to come.

There under the rubble they'd thrown aside was their Baby Flash. He lay there, littered with wounds as blood stained his yellow suit and it almost seemed like he could've been bathing in it. Nobody was certain what they said. Cold remembers telling Sam to get a portal to the Watchtower. It was a ridiculous, insane idea, but all the Rogues knew that it was their kid's only hope.

Icing a reflective wall had been easy, lifting the kid had taken everything he had. It took all his willpower not to feel like every pained cry the kid made wasn't a new wound on his body. As Sam made the portal, Cold could see that all the Rogues were pale, concerned, and there was a sadistic rage that lay beneath the surface reserved for the perpetrator. If anyone had thought they'd been angry when faced with Blaze and Razor, they looked fit to murder Joker ten times over and enjoy it this time.

Stepping through the portal, they hoped that they would make it in time.

Hal was enjoying his lunch on the Watchtower, as usual. Flash was busy elsewhere, so his usual conversation partner was absent. It made him frown, but he tried to keep himself cheerful by paying attention to the other heroes in attendance. Green Arrow was talking to another hero that Hal didn't talk to really and Superman and Hawkgirl seemed to be discussing a recent mission.

All in all, Hal wished there was someone he could talk to. He eyed the silver sheen of one of the mirrors in the cafeteria with distaste before he focused back on his dessert. Nutella pie. At least there was something to love about today. He took a bite and just about moaned with love for the chocolatey delight. Yup. Pie. Nutella pie.

It was the not so subtle vibrating of the air and the loud clank as lunch trays hit the floor that had him snapping his attention to the room. He was trained to jump up ready to either fight or abandon ship, should the enemy be too much. For a second he had forgotten that everyone was trained that way. It was part of being a hero.

No one could blame him for blanking. The spectacle of the Rogues filing out through the cafeteria mirror was just too unbelievable to well.. believe. They were criminals. This _was_ a superhero clubhouse after all. What the fuck were thieves doing on the Watchtower? No, better question. What were _Flash's_ thieves doing here?

It was that thought that had caused him to lose track of what was going on around him. Yelling forced him to return to the reality of the situation. No one was fighting. The heroes were tense, muscles taunt for a fight, but the Rogues seemed tense for a different reason, almost panicked. That did _not_ raise any warning bells in Hal's head. Especially the way Trickster is yelling at them for help, for them to move their asses. It makes his brow furrow in confusion. Who was hurt?

Heatwave, Pied Piper, and Mirror Master looked similarly vexed at the lack of action on the heroes' part. But why? That was when Hal's eyes were drawn towards red. Red on blue. Blue splattered with a horrifying red. Blood red.

Behind them stood Captain Cold, leader of the Rogues, dressed in his regular ice blue attire. It was that blue that attracted his gaze. And the small figure of a boy that lay limp, eyes glazed, practically swimming in that blood red that Hal hated so much.

Hal didn't recognize the boy at first. It took several agonizing minutes before he looked beyond the blood to see the yellow of a suit and a pale, familiar face that looked ashen. Hal was on his feet, rushing over there, yelling at the heroes as Trickster had done and telling them to 'move their asses or he'd drop them in a sun'. He felt disgusted with them for not spotting Kid Flash sooner, felt disgusted with himself.

He hardly remembers what he said to Cold as Cold handed over his pseudo-nephew. It made him feel sick when Kid Flash cried out in pain, eyes rolling back into his head. Hal tried to be gentle, but he could see bone and marred flesh where blood spilled from as wounds reopened. He didn't even slow down for the Rogues as he raced to the Medbay, vaguely hearing someone call a Code Red so they'd be ready for a serious case.

He was standing there, staring at the unpleasantly white doors leading to the surgery rooms. The color reminded him too much of Kid Flash, of the way his skin looked devoid of life. When the Rogues showed up to wait with him, he just sat there on the floor not even acknowledging them. They didn't say anything either. For once the rambunctious bunch seemed deadly still and silent.

Cold had only asked once where Flash was and Hal had managed to respond, saying that he was taking care of a disaster in Kenya. Neither Cold nor any of the Rogues asked when Flash would be there. They didn't blame him for not being able to flash there either. It seems they'd long accepted the facts that heroes had to do what they could, prioritize to save lives.

They were still on the first surgery when Batman had arrived with John Stewart, Hawkgirl, Wonder Woman and Superman. All of the heroes look disgruntled. It was hard to tell whether it was due to the villain presence or the fact that one of their own was fighting for his life beyond the white doors that Hal hated so much. When Superman had opened his mouth and told them that he didn't want thieves on the Watchtower, that was when Hal snapped. His temper had come racing to the surface. They had told him what happened in hushed voices before the heroes' arrival and he wasn't about to let anyone make them leave. They had saved Kid Flash. It was only fair that they would get to stay.

After tearing Superman a new one, much to the shock of all the heroes and the pleasure of the Rogues, they'd been allowed to stay. Hal didn't feel particularly shocked when Captain Cold decided to growl that Batman should've been there and they were staying in language that Hal would never repeat in front of Kid Flash. It was Gotham after all and the Joker was primarily his responsibility. He even agreed when the Rogues swore that they wouldn't allow Kid Flash to go back there without any back-up.

The Rogues' fierce protectiveness of Kid Flash had stunned the heroes. Hal had heard stories of how protective they were of their “Baby Flash” but he'd thought it was exaggerated. Some villains did like heroes and tended to go easier due to their bias, but this was on a mind-blowing level. Later he'd snicker about how good the hero group looked with their jaws slack with disbelief (Batman had just looked irritated, that stalking creeper). So they'd been allowed to stay and the heroes dispersed, not straying too far to keep an eye on the criminal group.

It was on the second surgery when Flash arrived followed shortly by Robin. He'd suddenly appeared with a gust of wind looking disheveled and exhausted beyond belief. Hal and Cold were the only ones able to understand his speed speak, even if it did give them a headache. They told him what had happened and how his young apprentice was doing. It had scared Hal how worn and hopeless Flash looked, but Cold was there to tell Flash that Kid Flash was a fighter and he'd make it. Hal had sniffed mentally, after all he knew that too. It should be his job. Robin just looked wrecked with despair.

Hal and Robin didn't miss the way Cold gave Flash's shoulder a squeeze nor the way Flash tiredly smiled back. It was looking like this was a regular occurrence. Kid Flash did tend to attract trouble. Hal wasn't going to question it if the Rogues were looking out for the young Speedster. He could use all the help he could get.

It seemed to take forever, but the surgeries finally ended in success. Three surgeries it better damn well have been a success because that boy was a part of their family. Well, families, if the look of utter relief on the Rogues' faces were anything to go by. The Rogues even stayed to make sure until he woke up, gathered in his Medbay room.

Kid Flash waking up had been decidedly the best thing there was for both criminals and heroes. But it was so heartbreaking to hear how Kid Flash had thought he wasn't going to make it. By that time Robin had joined them and Rogues and heroes alike knew how guilty Robin was feeling. The Rogues knew how much their Baby Flash liked going to Gotham to spend time with the acrobatic bird.

Hal felt lost at Kid Flash admittance. The Rogues looked lost. Everyone looked so damn lost and heartbroken. The darkness and utter terror in Kid Flash's eyes had prompted Cold to reassure him and he did. “Never, kid. Never, ever,” he'd said and everyone in that roomed had silently vowed the same.

It tugged at their heartstrings to see the way Flash held Baby Flash against him as their baby cried his eyes out. It was after he'd stopped crying that Cold stepped up and told him how they'd found him, what had happened after, and their arrival on the Watchtower. Kid Flash seemed to remember that last bit, giving them a small, amused smile despite the pain.

Hal watched as the Rogues left a few hours, just before Kid Flash was set to go to sleep again. Flash followed them out the door, leaving Hal and Robin to stay with the drowsy kid. When the Rogues had promised that nothing like that would ever happen to Kid Flash again, Hal vehemently agreed inside and he knew that Robin and Flash did the same. He let off a soft glow in the darkening room as Kid Flash fell asleep, praying that it would help stave off nightmares.

Leaving their baby was something the Rogues didn't want to do, but they had been assured that he would be okay with rest and would have a full recovery. Damned if they'd ever let their baby go through that again and they told Flash that. Flash had been extremely grateful to them for saving Kid Flash's life, but they'd shrugged it off. Baby Flash was theirs to take care of when the Flash couldn't.

After a few more words with Flash, they were accompanied off the Watchtower via Zeta beams. It seems like the heroes would be more careful about reflective surfaces, but honestly the Watchtower didn't interest them. They would let Flash argue their point for them. For now, they had a homicidal clown to tear to shreds when they found him. The Bat may not've been able to find him, but the Rogues had criminal resources they were going to use to get to the maniac who hurt their Baby Flash.

Heroes and Rogues alike had promised that they would never allow something like that to happen again to Kid Flash and they intended to keep that promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure how this chapter ended up. Eventually Hal and the Rogues' perspectives intersected. Was that confusing?
> 
> Anyways, I hope you liked it.

**Author's Note:**

> This just randomly happened. I started writing and wham! There was this, so I'm going to roll with it.  
> I know someone wanted Rogues meet League type and there's a little bit of that in here, but not much. Next work/chapter will focus on the Rogues meeting the League perspective instead of on Wally's.


End file.
